'Strange World' Disney's 2022 Animated Film

[Magenta Panther]

I wasn't talking about just this thread my friend.....

Okay, fine.

 

[Fox&Hound]

Has it been mentioned that this film will feature a gay romance? I found this news recently:

Disney's "Strange World" Features Gay Teen Romance

The animated feature "Strange World," scheduled for release in November, will be the first Disney movie to feature a gay romance.

www.metroweekly.com

Not making a statement one way or another, but you have to admit that may divide audiences. I am betting now that they pull an Osmosis Jones and the "strange world" in question is inside the protagonist and it is all about growing up and discovering who you are.

Agree with others that the animation could be more interesting...

 

[Ghost93]

Has it been mentioned that this film will feature a gay romance? I found this news recently:

Disney's "Strange World" Features Gay Teen Romance

The animated feature "Strange World," scheduled for release in November, will be the first Disney movie to feature a gay romance.

www.metroweekly.com

Not making a statement one way or another, but you have to admit that may divide audiences. I am betting now that they pull an Osmosis Jones and the "strange world" in question is inside the protagonist and it is all about growing up and discovering who you are.

Agree with others that the animation could be more interesting...

I think Disney just needs to bite the bullet and make a lesbian Disney Princess or Gay Disney Prince movie, where gay romance is the central focus of the movie. So far, Disney likes to add tons of minor gay moments into their movies to try to show off how progressive they are without having the gay moments be substantial enough to turn off conservative audiences completely. I'm not sure this approach is really working. These small moments are not enough to satisfy LGBTQ people wanting meaningful representation, yet conservatives are still fuming over small LGBTQ moments like the lesbians in Lightyear. So Disney is pleasing very few people with its current approach.

So I say make a movie that is explicitly FOR an LGBTQ audience. Let gays and lesbians have a movie where LGBTQ people are the protagonists, and a same-sex romance is given the same amount of storytelling focus as the romances from the Disney Renaissance era. I think if Disney does that, it won't feel obligated to sprinkle tiny gay moments into all of its other movies.

 

[doctornick]

I think Disney just needs to bite the bullet and make a lesbian Disney Princess or Gay Disney Prince movie, where gay romance is the central focus of the movie. So far, Disney likes to add tons of minor gay moments into their movies to try to show off how progressive they are without having the gay moments be substantial enough to turn off conservative audiences completely. I'm not sure this approach is really working. These small moments are not enough to satisfy LGBTQ people wanting meaningful representation, yet conservatives are still fuming over small LGBTQ moments like the lesbians in Lightyear. So Disney is pleasing very few people with its current approach.

So I say make a movie that is explicitly FOR an LGBTQ audience. Let gays and lesbians have a movie where LGBTQ people are the protagonists, and a same-sex romance is given the same amount of storytelling focus as the romances from the Disney Renaissance era. I think if Disney does that, it won't feel obligated to sprinkle tiny gay moments into all of its other movies.

Hard to argue with that.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I think Disney just needs to bite the bullet and make a lesbian Disney Princess or Gay Disney Prince movie, where gay romance is the central focus of the movie. So far, Disney likes to add tons of minor gay moments into their movies to try to show off how progressive they are without having the gay moments be substantial enough to turn off conservative audiences completely. I'm not sure this approach is really working. These small moments are not enough to satisfy LGBTQ people wanting meaningful representation, yet conservatives are still fuming over small LGBTQ moments like the lesbians in Lightyear. So Disney is pleasing very few people with its current approach.

So I say make a movie that is explicitly FOR an LGBTQ audience. Let gays and lesbians have a movie where LGBTQ people are the protagonists, and a same-sex romance is given the same amount of storytelling focus as the romances from the Disney Renaissance era. I think if Disney does that, it won't feel obligated to sprinkle tiny gay moments into all of its other movies.

I think there is certainly an argument for making content that focusses on LGBTQ stories. However, I don't really agree that "gay" and "straight" content needs to be separated. If your goal is to create more inclusive stories, the idea would be to include different types of people rather than to create separate stories for separate groups.

As for making an LGBTQ+ animated feature, they will only do that if they think it will make money and I don't think they do right now.

 

[Ghost93]

I think there is certainly an argument for making content that focusses on LGBTQ stories. However, I don't really agree that "gay" and "straight" content needs to be separated. If your goal is to create more inclusive stories, the idea would be to include different types of people rather than to create separate stories for separate groups.

As for making an LGBTQ+ animated feature, they will only do that if they think it will make money and I don't think they do right now.

I don't think gay and straight content necessarily need to be separated. My point is that the current strategy isn't pleasing ANYONE, and I think in the short term, it may be more beneficial just to release a completely gay movie. It may not make that much money, but it would buy Disney a lot of goodwill from the LGBTQ community.

I think the lesbians in Lightyear were fine in the movie, but representation that small isn't going to make LGBTQ people show up in droves. But it is enough to anger many conservatives.

And as a gay person myself, I'd frankly rather see nine Disney movies with nothing but straight characters if it meant I could get one Disney movie with GREAT gay representation than I would to see 10 Disney movies that have minor and inconsequential "exclusively gay moments." I don't speak for all gay people, but that's just my thoughts.

Can't comment on the representation in Strange World as I haven't seen it yet.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I don't think gay and straight content necessarily need to be separated. My point is that the current strategy isn't pleasing ANYONE, and I think in the short term, it may be more beneficial just to release a completely gay movie. It may not make that much money, but it would buy Disney a lot of goodwill from the LGBTQ community.

I think the lesbians in Lightyear were fine in the movie, but representation that small isn't going to make LGBTQ people show up in droves. But it is enough to anger many conservatives.

And as a gay person myself, I'd frankly rather see nine Disney movies with nothing but straight characters if it meant I could get one Disney movie with GREAT gay representation than I would to see 10 Disney movies that have minor and inconsequential "exclusively gay moments." I don't speak for all gay people, but that's just my thoughts.

Can't comment on the representation in Strange World as I haven't seen it yet.

I completely understand your point and hope it didn't seem I was suggesting you were against inclusion as a concept. I will admit that there is part of me that wonders whether Disney including LGBTQ+ storylines in several films close together is somewhat counterproductive in that it makes the company an easy punching bad for cultural warriors.

Overall, though, I think it depends on the aim. If the aim is really to promote inclusion, I suspect that taking some short-term backlash (however minor or major) in favour of the longer-term goal makes sense. If the aim is to appeal to the widest audience, separating the two types of content out until societal attitudes change makes sense.

 

[Ghost93]

I completely understand your point and hope it didn't seem I was suggesting you were against inclusion as a concept. I will admit that there is part of me that wonders whether Disney including LGBTQ+ storylines in several films close together is somewhat counterproductive in that it makes the company an easy punching bad for cultural warriors.

Overall, though, I think it depends on the aim. If the aim is really to promote inclusion, I suspect that taking some short-term backlash (however minor or major) in favour of the longer-term goal makes sense. If the aim is to appeal to the widest audience, separating the two types of content out until societal attitudes change makes sense.

I think Disney is testing the waters to see how audiences respond to small doses of LGBTQ content before they invest millions into a project where the main character is gay. You could view it as Disney "warming up" for their Big Gay Movie.

The problem is, LGBTQ audiences aren't going to show up for a minor character with a few minutes of screen time. Yet for anti-gay audiences who don't want their children to know about the existence of gay people, it won't matter if there is a minor gay character or major gay character — they don't want their children seeing ANY gay people.

If Disney is going to take a financial hit from conservative boycotts, I think they might as well take the hit over something really substantial instead of something minor.

And frankly, if I were Disney, I would stop publicizing that a movie has gay characters in advance. It sets expectations too high for gay people and it makes homophobes think the gay moments are much more prominent than they really are. Disney publicized gay characters in Beauty and the Beast, Rise of Skywalker, Jungle Cruise, Cruella, Onward, Thor: Love and Thunder and Lightyear and NONE of those scenes of representation were big enough to warrant pre-release hype.

The gay character in Strange World could be significant, but I still maintain that it's stupid from a business standpoint to announce his gayness in advance. Let the audiences discover for themselves!

 

[TP2000]

This came up over in the PRIDE thread, but it seems to relate here since I remember discussing that Strange World with its massive $120 Million production budget really needs to be a big hit this Thanksgiving through Christmas. At $120 Million, it needs $360 Million in global ticket sales during its 60+ day theatrical run to break even.

But Disney's Amsterdam movie, with a big budget of $80 Million, just had a very weak opening weekend and will apparently be losing a lot of money for Burbank.

A great deal is riding on Strange World with it's $120 Million budget, so they need to be careful with the marketing and trying to score Brownie Points with the Twitter elites for having a gay kid in it.

Columbus Day Holiday Weekend Box Office Stats through Sunday 10/9/22

 

[Ghost93]

A great deal is riding on Strange World with it's $120 Million budget, so they need to be careful with the marketing and trying to score Brownie Points with the Twitter elites for having a gay kid in it.

Even if Strange World didn't have a gay kid in it, I would still be concerned about its box office prospects. The film is giving strong Atlantis/Treasure Planet vibes. While I personally enjoyed all three of those movies, each was a notorious sci-fi Disney flop. Outside of Star Wars and Lilo & Stich, Disney rarely has financial success when it comes to tackling science fiction.


Black Panther and Avatar are going to be the movies that save Disney's fourth-quarter earnings.

 

[TP2000]

Even if Strange World didn't have a gay kid in it, I would still be concerned about its box office prospects. The film is giving strong Atlantis/Treasure Planet vibes.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't think Strange World is going to be at all successful. It looks like a weird Pixar knockoff movie circa 2008 from some unknown South Korean studio. Which only reinforces my ongoing question... Why does the Walt Disney Company have two separate "Animation" studios in Burbank and Emeryville that apparently now look exactly the same yet create similar movies that consistently underperform?

That's not a sustainable business model. No matter how many fanbois try and tell me that the $8 per month subscription fee for Disney+ covers all of that and more.

Add in the Social Media tidal wave of upset housewives in Oklahoma that are upset this November because there's a Gay in the new Disney movie, and this script of box office failure writes itself.

Black Panther and Avatar are going to be the movies that save Disney's fourth-quarter earnings.

Yes, they are. Assuming they're both megahits. They both need to be huge. Not moderately successful, or merely popular. But giant megahits that run for several weeks in first place, setting records and raking in a few hundred million apiece through early January. Good luck to them both!

But why weren't any of the other recent big budget movies from Burbank profitable? The money they spent (and lost) on Lightyear alone could have built two E Tickets in the parks, that actually fit their lands unlike Tron. Or at the very least could have been used to make WDW's 50th actually good.

So... Burbank just churns out big budget movies as a weird form of self immolation? Or just to prove they are Official Good People for a few thousand media folks on Twitter?

That is just not sustainable. Financially, or otherwise.

 

[BrianLo]

I definitely think Strange World will strongly underperform.

However, the vast majority of their last 10 feature films have been incredibly successful. It's a little difficult to say whether Raya left much impression and Winnie the Pooh would be the distant one on that list. It's otherwise one of their most successful runs of ten perhaps next to the Mermaid through Tarzan stretch.

Strange World seems to have a fairly uninteresting protagonist. I'm not sure anyone is rushing out to watch a movie about a Fish out of Water Dad. It's going for the 50's/60's throw back family drama flare, but Incredibles did that so much better.

Most of what they showed at their Animation Panel looked very good, Strange World I was distinctly meh on. Atlantis and Treasure Planet seem like poignant comparators.

 

[TP2000]

I definitely think Strange World will strongly underperform.

However, the vast majority of their last 10 feature films have been incredibly successful.

True, but I was mainly thinking of their post-Covid fare. That short list of films has either outright flopped (Lightyear) or been sent straight to streaming for free! (Turning Red).

Strange World cost them $120 Million to produce, which means it needs $350 Million in ticket sales to break even.

The other two holiday releases are worse financially:

Wakanda Forever cost them $200 Million, which will require $600 Million in ticket sales to break even.

Avatar 2 cost them $250 Million (?!?), which requires $750 Million in ticket sales to break even.

There better be lines around the block at every theater in America this Christmas, or else Burbank has some 'splaining to do on what they do with all that money.

 

[BrianLo]

True, but I was mainly thinking of their post-Covid fare. That short list of films has either outright flopped (Lightyear) or been sent straight to streaming for free! (Turning Red).

Those movies are from Pixar. I was more talking about WDAS. Raya is definitely questionable, but Encanto is much harder to downplay as anything but successful. Even if the theatrical run was Pandemic messy, post-theatrically they've done well with its popularity and music. Tellingly they are circling around it already for the Parks.

Pixar has been having some more obvious growing pains. However, Elementals looks to be possibly a hit. The movie afterwards (Elio) has a good concept, but so did the last dinosaur. Not enough was shown to make a call.

On the WDAS front after Strange World... I am very, very, very confident Wish will be big, probably huge.

 

[TP2000]

Those movies are from Pixar. I was more talking about WDAS.

I know, but I can't tell the difference between the two anymore. They both look and act the same now.

Strange World's characters and aesthetics isn't helping that, only furthering it.

 

[BrianLo]

I know, but I can't tell the difference between the two anymore. They both look and act the same now.

Strange World's characters and aesthetics isn't helping that, only furthering it.

Indeed. Wish is interesting because they are actually trying to harken even more back to the 2D stylings than the Tangled-beyond Princess look.

One thing is for sure there is very little confusion that "Wish" felt 'Disney' and "Elementals/Elio" felt 'Pixar'.

Strange World is the odd one out rather than a full indictment of the direction of the studio.

 

[erasure fan1]

Disney has to stop making these niche movies that the masses don't want to see.

It's not so much the niche aspect that is a problem in my opinion. It's not prioritizing storytelling first that is the issue. Personally I don't care what the subject matter is, as long as you tell a great story. And that has been the biggest problem with Disney movies. The people making the movies either aren't that great or are being handcuffed by corporate. Either way, until the focus gets put back on story first, we'll most likely be stuck with more misses than hits.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Why does the Walt Disney Company have two separate "Animation" studios in Burbank and Emeryville that apparently now look exactly the same yet create similar movies that consistently underperform?

Oh, so all CGI looks the same to you... That's animationism!!

Multiple studios can put out more content. Disney animation wasn't doing too well until they adapted the Pixar way.

They're also opening more animation studios as well as inheriting Fox studios. They are also producing made - for - D+ series.

In general, DAS does princess movies (except for Brave) and musicals and less sequels.

 

[TP2000]

Meanwhile, Burbank still has a great deal riding on the box office success of Strange World this Thanksgiving.

 

[TP2000]

Oh, so all CGI looks the same to you... That's animationism!!

When everyone and everything is labeled as a hateful 'ism now, I'll take it!

In general, DAS does princess movies (except for Brave) and musicals and less sequels.

But when they all look the same, who can keep track of that? I offer up my experience as a rather casual movie-goer, who even though I have a deep knowledge of the Disney theme parks I can't tell my Cinderella from my Sleeping Beauty (both blondes). Snow White was the first one who now has the nice restaurant and bar in DCA. Elsa is the one with white hair, I know that. And Belle has the yellow dress who dances with the beast on parade floats. Ariel is the Mermaid with the kinda lame Omnimover ride. Who am I forgetting? Pocahontas? Anyone else?

The average American who is not a 7 year old girl doesn't know this stuff, or much care. It all looks the same to us. And lately Pixar and Disney animated movies all look the same. That's my only point here really.